What’s Going on With Ruby Sunday in DOCTOR WHO?

Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes (following the Christmas special) of Doctor Who season 1.

There’s something strange about Ruby Sunday. We met the Fifteenth Doctor’s companion during the Christmas special “The Church on Ruby Road” and her story set off our spidey senses. She, like the Doctor, is an orphan who doesn’t know the full extent of her past. A woman left her at the episode’s titular church but, thankfully, she was taken in and later adopted. After learning the episode titles for Doctor Who season one, we knew that Ruby’s mysterious background would come into play. “Space Babies” is a heartfelt yet very unserious romp with a literal Boogeyman (like…a man made out of boogers) but it also gives us some curious breadcrumbs about Ruby Sunday and her past. We get another taste of that and some hints about her birth day in the second episode, “The Devil’s Chord.”

In “Space Babies”, Ruby Sunday and the Doctor find themselves on a space station that operates as a baby farm in the distant future. Due to pesky budget cuts, the crew—except for a hidden nanny-like figure named Nan-E/Jocelyn—is gone. Left behind are a group of talking babies who are mostly surviving on their own. But, there’s a weird and gross creature lurking just beneath them. A lot of the episode is quippy one-liners, running, a hallway full of snot, and a wild plan to get these refugees to a safe place.

Things get serious halfway through the action when the Doctor notes that Ruby, like the babies, were abandoned. He says that’s a strange connection. He also asks if she knows anything about her birth parents at all and she confirms she was just left in the snow at a church. The Doctor then goes into his memory of her mother walking away, which we saw in the Christmas episode. However, the woman/figure that we assume is Ruby’s mom turns around and points at him menacingly.

Who Is Ruby Sunday’s Mother in Doctor Who?

Right now, we still don’t know who Ruby Sunday’s mother is in the series. We also don’t know why the Doctor’s memory of seeing her walk away from the church is different. But we do know that he’s going to poke as far as he can to find out the truth. For whatever reason, he cannot return to that night to figure out the truth. He’s nearly in tears when Ruby brings him back to the current space to note it is snowing. He says she brought a memory through from her birth day and says this has never happened before. Ruby asks what it means and he says he doesn’t know. Fifteen laughs it off and gives her a hug but Nan-E interrupts them. 

Is Ruby Sunday a Human in Doctor Who? 

At the end of the episode, Ruby runs to greet her mum Carla while Fifteen hangs out in the TARDIS. We see he’s run a scan on her body to figure out more information. It affirms she’s 19 years and 3 days old and that she is a Homo sapien, but other scans still need to happen. And, the scan is not quite complete so there’s a chance that something strange will come up in her DNA.  

Who Else Was There on Ruby Sunday’s Birth Night? Who Is “the Oldest One” and “the One Who Waits” in Doctor Who?

In “The Devil’s Chord,” Fifteen and Ruby Sunday find themselves battling the Maestro (played by Jinkx Monsoon), the child of Neil Patrick Harris’ Toymaker. At the end of the 60th anniversary special, the Toymaker hinted a legion was coming for the Doctor. This episode gave us a taste of that. At one point, Ruby is caught up in the musical notes of the Maestro, who wants to consume the music left in her heart. Maestro’s tuning fork brings forth Ruby’s hidden song, which is “Shepherd’s Bell Carol,” the Christmas song playing the night she was born. The same snowfall that they saw on the space station begins to fall in that room. Maestro then says, “How can a song have so much power? And power like him?” The Doctor questions who “him” is and Maestro says it is “the oldest one.”

Maestro questions how the oldest one could have been there and why. The Doctor once again wants to know who, but Maestro doesn’t give him an answer. When Maestro is defeated at the end of the episode, they warn the Doctor and Ruby that “the one who waits is almost here.”

What does all of that mean? What does all of this have to do with Ruby Sunday’s past? We have no clue at the moment. It’s possible that the oldest one and the one who waits are the same person/entity. We saw the little boy from the opening, who is supposedly Maestro’s son. So he could appear in the future as one of these characters. Outside of her parentage, there’s also the ongoing mystery behind Ruby’s neighbor Mrs. Flood. The season is just starting so we will have to wait and see what is really happening with Ruby Sunday in Doctor Who.